


Drita

by ideal_girl (trainwreckdress)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 14 Valentines, Curses, Gen, Religious Themes & References, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-02
Updated: 2007-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 14:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trainwreckdress/pseuds/ideal_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a id="cutid1" name="cutid1"></a>When the trees turn from brown to green to red to gold and back to brown, Dean knows they've driven far enough, pointed toward Orion's belt for two days and one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drita

When the trees turn from brown to green to red to gold and back to brown, Dean knows they've driven far enough, pointed toward Orion's belt for two days and one night.

"We there yet?" Sam's words are swallowed by the whine of the car heater, the thickness of his sleeve.

Dean turns the car off, the silence loud in his ears, leans forward to squint at the neon sign up ahead. He palms the keys, the music of steel on steel cut off by the creak of the door.

"Let's get a move on, Sammy."

*

The parking lot is lined with deep grooves, cracks in the tired concrete where civilization gave up and nature stepped in with scrub grass and dirt. Sam's still mostly asleep, tripping over air, the cuffs of his jeans coloring dark with the salt and sand. The air cracks with the promise of snow, _more snow._ Dean reaches out a hand, steadies Sam with a quite _tsk,_ and they both step into the pool of light haloing the motel's office stoop.

"Where are we, anyway?" Sam rubs at his face, a cloud of cold seeping from his lips.

"Well, it's not God's country," Dean says, opening the door, heat billowing out toward them, and Sam gratefully steps inside.

*

The woman behind the desk doesn't even flinch when Dean hands over Jesus Rivera's credit card, barely looks up even when Sam nearly knocks over an entire pile of dusty brochures touting the nearest thing to family entertainment in the area.

Keys slap down on the counter, and she jerks a thumb over her shoulder, clips out, _"It's on the left, make sure to lock up when you leave, yeah,"_ and goes back to her book, a beat-up thing that Dean knows is a Bible, probably a King James written in a language he won't understand if he reads the area right.

"Thanks, you've been great," he says, pushes Sam out the door and back into the cold. He presses a key into Sam's hand, waves him in the direction of Room 11 and jogs toward the car, skin shivering underneath his clothes already.

*

Key in lock, the door clicks under his hand, wind carrying it open. He leans in, jacket bowing around him, cold air tickling up his sides, under his shirt and up to his neck.

 _"Shh shh,"_ the grass sighs when he hipchecks the door closed, arms filled with stuff, mostly Sam's, only some of Dean's.

The wind sounds like falling glass against the dead trees, leaves whipping across his path. He makes it to the room, kicks the door in welcome, waits a beat before the bellow ( _"Sam!"_ ), but even then there's nothing. Bags at his feet, and his hand in his jacket, smooth wood and metal against one hand, the doorknob against the other, and the door disappears on him, replaced with his brother with a phone book in his arms.

"Hold your horses." Sam doesn't even look up, has no idea Dean about shot him out of worry. "So it appears even in the middle of Nowhere, New England, there are 12 Rhines' in this book, three of them are Thomas, and two more are just listed with a T? How are we going to track this guy down?"

Dean takes a deep breath, followed by another, pulls his fingers from his gun and lets his hand drop to his side. "I'm sure we'll do fine."

*

Four hours and five beers later, Dean's got two phone numbers and one address. It doesn't help that one of the phone numbers is the waitress's. But the other is for the oldest church in the area, with an address to match.

They watch the locals karaoke to songs from another decade until Sam's sober enough to drive them the handful of miles back to the motel.

The room is warm with musty heat, so Dean props open the bathroom window and Sam fills the ice bucket. They crunch through handfuls, water slipping down their wrists, _Law & Order_ on the ancient television until they fall asleep.

*

Morning brings them too-bright sun and cold air spilling through the window. Dean pulls the covers off the bed, half wraps, half carries them as he wrestles the window closed.

Sam doesn't wake up until Dean uses all the hot water. In retaliation, Sam drinks the last of the coffee from a chipped mug and steals Dean's last pair of clean socks.

Dean drives, grumbles about Sam moving the seat the night before.

*

The church is a washed-out slash of brown brick perched at the top of a hill, a smudge of white housing a school to the left and a green cascade of trees to the right. There are 34 steps to the front door, wider than Sam is tall, but they open easily under Dean's hand.

"After you," Dean says, waves his brother through the door, a glance over his shoulder as a school bus screeches to a halt and kids stream across the street.

*

Inside, the brick turns to white walls, streaks of wood cutting across the high ceiling. It smells like starched suits and tight shoes, and Dean thinks he can feel the press of his mother's hand on the back of his neck.

Incense burns down to the left and right, sticks propped upright in sand, icons of dead saints filling the available wall space.

"I feel like all their little eyes are following me," Dean murmurs, and Sam elbows him, out of spite and memory. Their boots scuff up the clean floor as they spill into the church.

The pews are mostly empty, save for the tiny ladies bundled up in black. They clutch their beads, evil eyes peeking out from between their fingers.

They slip into a pew, and wait. Sam's leg jitters, and Dean presses a warm hand to Sam's knee, soothes him silent. There's a chime of bells, and the ornate doors behind the alter open, men and boys passing back and forth. The smell of incense intensifies, and the pews begin to fill, men and women with downcast eyes, speaking in quiet tones to children with upturned faces.

The vespers begin, and Dean follows, mostly, Sam nudging him when he's meant to stand and sit. He focuses on the men lined up in the front, their voices lifting above the congregation in song. Dean sees the nervous hands of the one on the end, his fingers plucking his neatly pressed pants. The program names him as Thom Rhines. Once the service ends, Dean watches the man slip away from the crowds. Sam turns to him, after a soft-spoken consult with the middle-aged woman sitting next to them, tells Dean that most people head downstairs for coffee and donuts.

"Count me in," Dean says, offers the woman what he hopes is a genuine smile, tugs on his brother's elbow. He leans in, whisper-close, opens his mouth, forgets what he's meant to say, closes it, and lets himself be carried with the crowd.

*

The coffee is hot, but there's not much else to say about it, but the crumbling granola they have offered up is sweet and salty. Dean licks at his fingertips, his teeth cutting against his skin. Sam talks to anyone who'll be friendly enough to strangers, learns from a stocky man in a patterned sweater that _"Thom will be down, soon, it's his responsibility to clean up, and he's lazy, but God-fearing."_

*

They find out from another man that Thom _"hasn't been the same since his brother was killed."_ Another person offered up, without thought, that it was _"just terrible how kids nowadays were following the old ways, primitive, but not you, you're good boys, aren't you, of course you are."_

*

Dean doesn't tell Sam about how the bartender couldn't say the word out loud ("Keep your voice down!"), had to whisper it and cross himself three times ("It's the kanun, I know it is, ah, _me e fal gjakun._ "). Dean does tell Sam that he thinks religion is pretty stupid, and maybe this one stupider than most.

Sam does tell Dean that he's an idiot, that this has nothing to do with religion or belief and everything to do with terror and fear. Something has to explain the houses locked from the inside, forensics coming up blank, three teens dead, every mirror in their hourses fogged with the same words traced out over and over again. Sam doesn't tell Dean that he thinks this is just human nature turned upside down, nothing supernatural about it.

"'Our eyes were filled with tears,' Dean." Sam fingers a copy of the crime scene photos he hacked out of the local police department. "It's gotta mean something."

Dean shrugs, looks elsewhere. "Yeah, whatever."

*

Thom start-stops when he sees them, shadows cutting across the parking lot. He shuffles his feet, gravel spreading this way and that. He looks at Sam like Sam can help him, looks at Dean like he's not even there.

"I can't stop," Thom says, his eyes flashing yellow for a brief moment. Dean tenses, hands at the knife under his waistband. "I don't want to. You should try it, you might like it."

Thom disappears, and Dean shoves Sam toward the car, tells him he's really not looking forward to the day he decides he's ready to go balls-out evil.

*

The next day a fourth boy is found 60 miles away, his car turned around and upside down. The town exhales, collectively, in some way that's even noticeable to strangers.

"It's over, you know," the old woman who runs the motel tells them that afternoon when they return after a fruitless search at understanding the why, the how. "He won't come back, he's gotten payment."

Sam asks her what she means, his voice rising with the volume of her soap opera. He starts forward, but Dean's hand is firm on his shoulders, tugging him back.

*

The newspaper tells them that the four boys grew up together, inseparable from each other and a fifth Joseph Rhines, younger brother of Thom Rhines. Thom, according to the paper, is currently in Tirana as part of a church exchange program.

"They're covering it up." Sam folds the newspaper a little too carefully, earns a paper cut for his trouble. He pulls a face, blood staining his paper coffee cup. "They're protecting him, blaming some old-school grudge match, when, really, he's just like--"

"He's not just like anything," Dean cuts in, eyes anywhere but on the brown-red smear. His own coffee cup is empty, rattling around the parking lot. "Nothing we can do about it, Sammy."

Wind buffets the car, whistling through the cracks and through the vents. Sunlight streams through the sleeping trees. "Yeah, well. Just get us out of here," Sam finally bites out.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Notes:** My father and I talk about our (i.e., Albanian) religious culture a lot, because if we didn't, we'd only talk about _Dr. Who_ and how my mother is crazy. After I learned about the kanun a few months ago, it's been this bizarre _thing_ that needed an outlet. And I've been wanting to write Sam and Dean in New England with crazy religious folklore.
> 
> The [kanun](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanuni_i_Lek%C3%AB_Dukagjinit) is an Albanian code of law. Basically, if you kill someone, their family can retaliate in the same fashion. Seeing as how this pretty much sucks, there's been a movement to " _me e fal gjakun,_ " meaning, "forgive the blood." "Our eyes were filled with tears," was said by Nini Demo, who called for his countrymen to stop being stupid and drop the kanun. I figured something like this could be perfect "cover" for some of the craziness that the Sons Like Sam would inflict, and here we are. A bit self-indulgent, but there you go. "Drita" means "light," which is something in short supply in New England this time of year.
> 
> This started its life as a comment fic, and is very different from what I normally write. Allowing the "plot" to unfold as the characters discover it -- and keeping that reveal close to the chest -- was hard!


End file.
